If so, you might be employed at one of the 50 companies, organizations and agencies that were honored last September as one of the Courant/Fox CT Top Workplaces of 2012.

And if your employer wasn't there in 2012 we are doing it again this year.

Among the top winners in previous years were well-known brand names like William Raveis Real Estate, Mortgage & Insurance – a two-time winner – and ticket resale service StubHub, as well as smaller employers, like IT consulting firm OpenSky Corp. of Tolland.

Top leadership awards last year went to George R. Aylward, president and CEO of Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. in Hartford; Elsa Núñez, president of Eastern Connecticut State University; and Julie Paolino, managing partner of Integrated Rehabilitation Services.

Any of them can tell you that the pride of victory raised morale even further at places that already displayed a top-to-bottom winning attitude.

Now we're choosing the best places to work in 2013 and we need your help. If you feel good about your workplace, nominate your organization to be one of the Hartford Courant/Fox CT Top Workplaces of 2013.

Winners are chosen based on a 24-question employee survey by our partner, WorkplaceDynamics LLC, which has conducted more than 1 million employee surveys and compiled top employer lists for some of the nation's largest metropolitan news outlets.

We'll compile a list of winners in size categories and present it in September, with an awards event, a special news publication, TV coverage on Fox CT and online at http://www.courant.com.

The reason for this is clear: The quality of a workplace matters in good times and bad, in measurable ways like pay and benefits, as well as through intangibles of how employees feel.

Any employer with at least 50 employees in Hartford, Middlesex, Tolland, New London and Windham counties is eligible. It can be a for-profit business or a nonprofit group; it can be based here or part of a larger organization with headquarters elsewhere.

Employers that are nominated won't be charged to enter. Nominations can come from anyone, and can be anonymous, or you can claim credit for suggesting your employer. Only the list of winners will be announced, but all employers that enter will receive valuable feedback.

There are many possible ways to measure the quality of a workplace: wages and benefits, employee turnover, physical amenities like gyms, policies such as flex time and free lunch, and profit-sharing all come to mind.

At William Raveis Real Estate, Mortgage & Insurance, social media and other digital tools are in heavy use, helping agents with organization and promotion and improving the firm's success in the market and their employees' satisfaction.

Visitors to Marketing Solutions' website are greeted by a flashy introduction with pulsing dance music that continues to play while they browse the site, evoking the modern vibe the company hopes to project.

George R. Aylward said he inspires confidence in Virtus Investment Partners by producing a quality product and fostering an environment in which all employees directly influence the success of the company.